


Nice Day to Start Again

by phoebesmum



Category: Sports Night
Genre: Challenge Response, Other, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-03
Updated: 2010-09-03
Packaged: 2017-10-11 10:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/111575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebesmum/pseuds/phoebesmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Marriage is much on Dan's mind today.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nice Day to Start Again

**Author's Note:**

> Written 25 July 2010 for the Sorkinverse, _fic with prompts_; prompt: _wedding_.

Dan's nieces have invented a new car game, so his sister tells him. "Married!" they cheer, whenever they cross into a state where their mothers' partnership is recognised, and "Living in s-i-i-i-n!" they wail as they cross into one where it isn't. There isn't much doubt which parent they take after; Dan would recognise Karen's sense of humour anywhere. They're bright kids, funny and smart, and remarkably well-adjusted, given that they're part-Rydell. They do tend to regard families with fewer than two mothers as an oddity, and have a reckless tendency to say so, but, no doubt, in time they'll learn tolerance.

Or possibly not. Dan's parents certainly never have. His mother still cries any time Karen's name is mentioned – not that that makes much difference, his mother spends most of her life in tears – and his father never mentions her name at all.

More fool them. They. Whatever. They're missing out on more than they could possibly imagine.

So, Dan suspects, is he. Still, he very much doubts whether he himself will ever marry. He's thirty six now, and if it hasn't happened by this time … well, maybe there's someone for everyone but Dan Rydell, and if that's the case then there's no sense losing sleep over it.

He doesn't. Much. In fact, he hardly ever thinks of it at all. It's just that marriage is much on his mind today, as he sits in church – a bizarre enough experience in itself – starched white shirt scratching his throat as he watches Rebecca Wells take the plunge for a second and, he devoutly hopes, infinitely more successful time and pledge herself to another man.

Another man that isn't him, that is. Not that he wishes it were. That boat sailed a long, long time ago. Sailed, and was lost with all hands.

Still, it's … weird. There's some emotion trying to punch its way through the wall of indifference that he's so carefully built up, and it may be envy, it may be regret, but whatever it is, it's not welcome here and he firmly tamps it down, sends it back to wherever it came from and moves hastily onward.

It's times like these that he wishes he had a shoulder to lean on, a hand to hold. (Times like these, and many, many others that he won't admit to himself, no matter how dark the nights may be, no matter how lonely.) Today he doesn't even have a plus-one to his name. There were plenty of girls – women – he could have called, who'd have been happy to have an excuse to put on a hot dress, drink free champagne, and cuddle up to him as the cameras flashed; they're the same women – girls – he's seen out with at night, in clubs and bars, at awards shows and premieres. Woman who mean nothing to him, and to whom he means nothing more than a step on the ladder to their own success. And today, _this_ day, that wouldn't have been enough.

(Loneliness. That's what it is, that emotion he refuses to name. And now he's named it, and now it's looming over his shoulder, laughing in his ear.)

(Bastard.)

So: lonely. What the hell: he'll get by alone. He always has. And so he does today. He watches, and smiles, and stands and sits and does not sing, and applauds when everybody else does. And, after it's all over, he troops out, along with all the others, to stand blinking in the sunshine while photographers try to rally the horde into some semblance of photogenic order.

They'll be calling his name soon enough. He's under no illusion that Rebecca invited him here in remembrance of their lost love. She wanted him for his celebrity status, to get her wedding into glossy magazines that she can wave at her friends for bragging points and scrapbook for posterity.

In the meantime, there's shade underneath the spreading elm trees – he thinks they're elms, if he's remembering his elementary school botany classes correctly – and he's grateful to slip under it, find some relief from the sunlight and the heat.

He prefers darkness and shadows these days, it seems. He hopes that's not symbolic; it'd be pretty lame and trite if it were. He certainly hopes it doesn't mean he's a vampire. Probably not. Surely he'd know by now? Besides, he wouldn't show up on camera, and if that didn't get him into trouble with Dana, he doesn't know what would …

He should never, Dan reflects, be left alone with his thoughts, especially when he's avoiding thinking. You never know where they'll take him. And so it's a relief when a hand touches his shoulder – that is, it's a relief _after_ he's jumped out of his skin and his heart has ceased hammering – and he turns, expecting to see a harassed bridesmaid on a mission to drag him out, back to join the celebratory fold.

But his eyes meet Casey's, and he almost laughs aloud in relief before he thinks to ask what he's doing there. Casey hadn't been invited. Even Rebecca couldn't claim _that_ close an acquaintance.

"I was just passing," Casey tells him, before Dan can ask him anything, and again Dan just manages not to laugh out loud.

_Sure you were, Casey. Because Hartford, Connecticut is right smack bang on your commuter route home._

"Good to see you," he says instead, his voice neutral. Because it _is_ good to see Casey; the darkness, the shadows that have clung to him this day have fled, the niggling sorrow and the indefinable sense of loss. All of it, gone, and in its place only joy. He can feel himself smiling – grinning like an idiot, actually – and he wonders: maybe it's _too_ good to see Casey?

Maybe there's a reason none of those women really ever meant anything. And maybe, too, there's a reason that Casey's own marriage didn't work out.

Dan smiles again, secretly now, hugging the thought to himself. It's something to consider. Something for the future.

But oh: if it's true – how in the world will he ever tell his parents?!

He really doesn't care.

"It's good to see you," he says again and, nodding toward the wedding party, "You want to get out of here?"

"You don't want to stick around?" Casey says. He doesn't sound surprised, and it's not really a question. "This is Rebecca's big day!"

"That it is," Dan agrees, and he turns away, knowing that Casey will be right there with him. "Let her have it. Let's go."

And so they do; they walk out of Rebecca's story, and onward, into another that's told by the two of them alone.

(Rebecca never does get her photo. And she never speaks to Dan again.)

(Her loss.)

***


End file.
